Two wind farms in a quarter full of solar panels quietly carried the weight of South Africa's newest renewable build-out. Of the 124 generation facilities the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) registered between April and June 2026, a full 122 were solar PV — yet those two lone wind farms produced 568 megawatts, or 71% of the total 804MW added. The sunny reality of that first quarter was capped with an estimated investment of R20.18 billion.
Why this matters: South Africa's electricity system has long leaned on Eskom's coal-fired plants, many of them ageing. Adding clean power at this pace — and at a striking R25 099 per kilowatt on average — is a big step toward a more reliable, less polluting grid. For context, Eskom's entire nominal generation capacity, built over more than a century, sits at roughly 47 000MW. These new facilities are a meaningful slice of that.
The projects spread across the map. The Western Cape, Gauteng and Limpopo registered the most new facilities, while the Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and Gauteng led in installed capacity and investment. The Northern Cape landed the single biggest outlay at about R11.934 billion for projects totalling 440MW — more than half the quarter's capacity and money going into one province known for its relentless sun.
The grid itself tells an interesting story. Sixty-three of the facilities plug into municipal distribution networks, carrying a combined 47MW and R639 million in investment. The other 61 connect to the Eskom network, accounting for 757MW — the vast bulk of the capacity — at roughly R19.54 million. In other words, most of the power flows through the national utility's wires.
Zoom out and the momentum becomes clearer. Since 2018, Nersa has registered 2 619 generation facilities with a combined 20 131MW and an estimated total investment of about R409 billion. That's already more than a third of Eskom's century-long build within just a few years.
The appetite for clean energy far exceeds official plans. The Integrated Resource Plan (IRP 2025) — the government's roadmap for future electricity demand — targets only 67.5GW over the next 14 years. But the South African Renewable Energy Grid Survey 2025, a joint effort by the country's solar and wind associations and the National Transmission Company, found solar, wind and battery projects totalling more than 72 242 megawatts alternating current (MWac) are expected by 2032. MWac simply measures the maximum usable power an inverter can push to the grid at a given moment.
One hurdle remains: grid capacity constraints in the solar- and wind-rich Cape provinces still stand in the way. The sun shines; the wires must catch up. But with registration climbing quarter after quarter, South Africa is clearly building its way toward a cleaner future — and the two wind farms of a busy solar season are a quiet reminder that every kind of renewable counts.